Why does no one care about yet another massacre in Darfur? Probably because the genocide in Sudan’s Darfur region has the wrong storyline. It is mostly about Arab Muslims massacring black Africans. People of color versus people of color. There is no audience in the West for an African drama without a white Nazi villain.
The massacres are so extensive they can be seen from orbit. “Satellite images of the Saudi Hospital show signs of a massacre, with apparent clusters of bodies and blood-stained ground clearly visible.”
Nothing about the most recent massacre of thousands in camps and hospitals is new. It is act 2 of a long running play. “Systematic killings in the Sudanese city of el-Fasher have prompted human rights and aid activists to describe the civil war between the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the military as a ‘continuation of the Darfur genocide.’” Note the word "continuation" – same cast, same story, same old villains. “The RSF emerged from the Janjaweed, Arab militias who massacred hundreds of thousands of Darfuris from non-Arab populations, in the early 2000s.” Under their new name they’re still as deadly.
The warring sides are fighting over money. Oil and mineral riches are the curse of Africa. Africans and Sudanese in particular are sitting on a pile of wealth without the human capital to either develop or defend it. Africa is like a storehouse of gold, diamonds, oil, and fertile land guarded by a sentry slumped at the door. That situation attracts the bandidos.
In this case, the conflict is between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), the official army that Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan leads, and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary that Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (“Hemedti”) leads. It centers upon the gold and uranium of Darfur and control of the Port Sudan pipeline. The SAF and RSF were allies in the 2021 coup that toppled the old government, and now, with that done, they’re fighting for the loot.
There are riches galore in Sudan for everyone except the actual inhabitants. As Chatham House points out, gold smuggling and laundering was one of the drivers of the conflict to begin with. “Artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) makes up the majority of the gold that Sudan produces, most of which ends up in the UAE, either directly or indirectly via neighbouring countries including Chad, Egypt, Eritrea and South Sudan.”
According to some reports, the UAE has been supporting the RSF in exchange for gold, which they onsell. Playing on the other side is Russia, which supports the SAF with its Africa Corps mercenaries in exchange for gold, reportedly to help pay for the war in Ukraine. “President Omar al Bashir granted mining concessions to companies with close ties to the military, including companies linked to the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the National Intelligence and Security Services, as well as to foreign actors, with Russian companies playing a particularly important role.”
Egypt is supporting the SAF side in Sudan. What Cairo wants to ensure is not gold, but irrigation water. The upper Nile flows through Sudan before irrigating the Egyptian delta. The Egyptians cannot risk a hostile power controlling the headwaters of the Nile. So “Hemedti’s forces accused Egyptian aircraft of bombing RSF camps and, in a video, Hemedti accused the Egyptian army of attacking RSF positions in Jabal Moya, Sennar State.”
But if Cairo decided to back SAF, an even more interesting game is being played by China. It is arming both sides. In that way, whoever wins will owe China a debt of gratitude, and allow the Greater Nile Oil Pipeline, which Beijing largely built to flow undisturbed from southern Sudan to the shipping terminal on the Red Sea. The Chinese are a very careful civilization.
New evidence reveals Chinese-manufactured weapons are being used by both the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan’s ongoing conflict – a brutal war that has displaced millions and killed thousands.
Despite Beijing’s declared neutrality and repeated calls for dialogue, Chinese arms are surfacing on both sides of the battlefield, raising questions about China’s real position—and whether it is knowingly enabling the war through state-linked companies.
Perhaps one indication of how much the war business is booming in Africa is the presence of Colombian mercenaries in the conflict. ”The Desert Wolves are a private battalion of retired Colombian Armed Forces personnel fighting alongside the Rapid Support Forces in the ongoing Sudanese civil war. It consists of four companies comprising between 300 and 400 mercenaries in total. … The battalion was recruited by private security companies in the United Arab Emirates.”
The race for Africa is not something that happened long ago in the 19th century. In a sense, it has only just started. When humanitarian, international and civil rights organizations say "the massacre in Sudan must be stopped," they conveniently omit the fact that no power of consequence either wants to stop it or has the power to do so. Not the Gulf Arabs, nor Russia, nor China; never mind the EU or the UN. Woke ideology has completely collapsed in Sudan. The script has failed utterly. “Black lives matter” is a slogan that only resonates in the West. In the the world at large, apparently nobody gives a damn.
